Canada leaves Kyoto

[Thanas]

BBC

Canada to withdraw from Kyoto Protocol

Environment Minister Peter Kent: ''Kyoto is not the path forward for a global solution for climate change''


Canada will formally withdraw from the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, the minister of the environment has said.

Peter Kent said the protocol "does not represent a way forward for Canada" and the country would face crippling fines for failing to meet its targets.

The move, which is legal and was expected, makes it the first nation to pull out of the global treaty.

The protocol, initially adopted in Kyoto, Japan, in 1997, is aimed at fighting global warming.

"Kyoto, for Canada, is in the past, and as such we are invoking our legal right to withdraw from Kyoto," Mr Kent said in Toronto.

He said he would be formally advising the United Nations of his country's intention to pull out.

'Impediment'

He said meeting Canada's obligations under Kyoto would cost $13.6bn (10.3bn euros; £8.7bn): "That's $1,600 from every Canadian family - that's the Kyoto cost to Canadians, that was the legacy of an incompetent Liberal government".

That Canada would withdraw from the Kyoto Protocol has been the worst-kept recent secret in climate change politics.

On taking office in 2007, Stephen Harper's government found their predecessors, for all their green rhetoric, had done little to cut Canada's emissions.

Rather than heading for a 6% cut from 1990 levels by 2020, the Kyoto pledge, it was and still is set for a rise of about 16% - more like 30% if you include forestry. The obvious answer, to huge distain from critics, was to say they wouldn't try meeting the target.

Since then, the approach has been to copy the US line. Canada's current pledge is exactly the same as the US one - a cut of 17% from 2005 levels by 2020 - with the proviso that the number will change if the US passes legislation with a different target.

And as the US is outside Kyoto, Canada's last act of mimicry was to leave as well.

A burning question at the recent UN talks in Durban was whether Japan, Russia, Australia or New Zealand would follow Canada's lead - which would effectively leave just European countries inside.

For the moment, it appears unlikely, as all like the flexibility Kyoto offers for meeting emission targets. But it's not impossible.

He said that despite this cost, greenhouse emissions would continue to rise as two of the world's largest polluters - the US and China - were not covered by the Kyoto agreement.

"We believe that a new agreement that will allow us to generate jobs and economic growth represents the way forward," he said.

Beijing criticised Canada's decision. Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Liu Weimin said it went "against the efforts of the international community and is regrettable".

Mr Kent's announcement came just hours after a last-minute deal on climate change was agreed in Durban.

Talks on a new legal deal covering all countries will begin next year and end by 2015, coming into effect by 2020, the UN climate conference decided.

"The Kyoto Protocol is a dated document, it is actually considered by many as an impediment to the move forward but there was good will demonstrated in Durban, the agreement that we ended up with provides the basis for an agreement by 2015."

He said that though the text of the Durban agreement "provides a loophole for China and India", it represents "the way forward".

Canada's previous Liberal government signed the accord but Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservative government never embraced it.

Canada declared four years ago that it did not intend to meet its existing Kyoto Protocol commitments and its annual emissions have risen by about a third since 1990.

Sign something, never intended to keep it....scumbag move.

[Phantasee]

Yeah, sorry, but it was kind of impossible to follow through with it. There was no way to have emissions be anywhere near 1990 levels, Canada has grown too much since then. Arguably it was already too late when Kyoto was signed.

[Thanas]

Yeah, sorry, but it was kind of impossible to follow through with it. There was no way to have emissions be anywhere near 1990 levels, Canada has grown too much since then. Arguably it was already too late when Kyoto was signed.

Gee, I wonder what would have happened if other nations (like Germany) had that kind of scumbag attitude....

[TithonusSyndrome]

Well, if the Harpercons were in power when Kyoto was first proposed, Canada would've never signed it in the first place. What do you expect from an empathetically dysfunctional sicko who served on the board of Canada's only pro-apartheid organization along with every major figure in Canadian neo-naziism? "Scumbag" is too light a criticism and stops short of encapsulating Harper's conniving, cynical, manipulative and remorseless qualities, that's my only criticism of that assessment.

[Phantasee]

Honestly I think a Liberal government would have pulled out, too. Chretien and Martin didn't do much to reduce emissions when they were in office, either.

I agree with everything Tith said, though.

[TithonusSyndrome]

I disagree; I think that if Martin were running the show, he'd have remained in it while missing targets and put half his efforts into trying to meet them, and the other half of his efforts would've been mealymouthed horseshit about rewriting the terms of Kyoto and how US polluters cross the border so shame on them. Dion or Ignatieff might've pulled out, granted, but mercifully we'll never know now.

[SCRawl]

It's disappointing, but really not surprising. I suppose that the only way to even contemplate meeting (or even approaching) our Kyoto commitments would have been to scale back the oil sands development, and good luck floating that lead balloon in Ottawa.

OTOH, it's hard to say that Chretien, et al didn't have any intention of following through. There were precious few moves in that direction in the years since, but I'd like to believe that we ratified Kyoto in good faith.

[Phantasee]

Oil sands don't contribute to GHGs as much as people like to think.

[Phantasee]

I recommend reading Andrew Leach's blog post on the subject: here

He's an environmental economist teaching in the Natural Resources, Energy, and Environment program at the Alberta School of Business at the U of A.

[SCRawl]

Oil sands don't contribute to GHGs as much as people like to think.

Something like 7% of national emissions -- not a number to be dismissed with impunity.

[Coop D'etat]

I disagree; I think that if Martin were running the show, he'd have remained in it while missing targets and put half his efforts into trying to meet them, and the other half of his efforts would've been mealymouthed horseshit about rewriting the terms of Kyoto and how US polluters cross the border so shame on them. Dion or Ignatieff might've pulled out, granted, but mercifully we'll never know now.

Dion centred his entire campaign around finally getting serious about greenhouse gases. That was considered by many as a big reason why he lost. If the Canadian voting public actually cared about the issue that was our big chance to do something about it.

Given that Harper has earned enough support to form minority governments and now a majority (which gives the Conservatives licence to do whatever he wants for 5 years), while its been pretty clear he is indifferent to climate change, its pretty fair to blame the Canadian people themselves for nothing happening. If as a whole we wanted to do something we've had the opportunity to vote for it.

I agree a Martin government probably would have half-assed it while saying the right things. As a whole Canadians are pretty crap on the environment when they think it'll effect their wallets. We're enormous hypocrites that way.


On the other hand, its pretty useless for Canada to do much about CO2 when the Americans are sitting on their thumbs. The Conservative position has always pretty much been "we'll match whatever the American's do" which is effectively nothing. So part of this is the fault of everyone's favourite scapegoat. The world's tragedy is that in this prisoner's dilemma for re-gearing economies to get off carbon the key decision makers are beholding to a populace where denying the problem is a popular opinion.

[TithonusSyndrome]

Oil sands don't contribute to GHGs as much as people like to think.

Something like 7% of national emissions -- not a number to be dismissed with impunity.

All coming from a municipality that makes up approximately a third of a percent of Canada's population, no less.

Dion centred his entire campaign around finally getting serious about greenhouse gases. That was considered by many as a big reason why he lost. If the Canadian voting public actually cared about the issue that was our big chance to do something about it.

I kinda remember that. As little enthusiasm as I had for the elections at the time, I guess I would've done better to pay closer attention to that.

Given that Harper has earned enough support to form minority governments and now a majority (which gives the Conservatives licence to do whatever he wants for 5 years), while its been pretty clear he is indifferent to climate change, its pretty fair to blame the Canadian people themselves for nothing happening. If as a whole we wanted to do something we've had the opportunity to vote for it.

Indifferent? Well, contempt and indifference are hard to parse with a conniving automaton I guess, so half dozen of one, six of the other, but on the rare occasion where he's seen getting lathered up in private, it doesn't really leave much guessing that he places environmentalism in that same camp of ideological rivals that he feels deserves obliteration and scorn.

I agree a Martin government probably would have half-assed it while saying the right things. As a whole Canadians are pretty crap on the environment when they think it'll effect their wallets. We're enormous hypocrites that way.

Ohhh buddy me son, if I had a nickel for every time I heard an overpaid nouveau-riche plant worker wail that regulations like those associated with Kyoto would undermine his ability to provide Maslow's basics for his kids, I'd probably buy my own coin roller print by now. No, you dumbfuck; it might undermine your ability to secure a line of credit for your third quad and fourth bigscreen TV, but that doesn't sound quite as victimized, does it?

[Col. Crackpot]

Politicians were given the choice: billions in hard currency and jobs now and the near future (increased petroleum exports from Alberta Oil Sands) or melting ice caps in 150 years. Honestly what did you think they would choose?

[Thanas]

Politicians were given the choice: billions in hard currency and jobs now and the near future (increased petroleum exports from Alberta Oil Sands) or melting ice caps in 150 years. Honestly what did you think they would choose?

I'd have thought they'd find a compromise between doing something and doing nothing.

[Col. Crackpot]

Politicians were given the choice: billions in hard currency and jobs now and the near future (increased petroleum exports from Alberta Oil Sands) or melting ice caps in 150 years. Honestly what did you think they would choose?

I'd have thought they'd find a compromise between doing something and doing nothing.

then you have far too much faith in humanity

[TithonusSyndrome]

Oh he cares plenty about the environment when he can sort of squeeze some points in on that issue in the course of courting votes from regions where he intends to fund (relatively) green power projects, like the Newfoundland dam. That's... pretty much it. His attitude on the environment is a bit like a child who sullenly apologizes for breaking the window of a doting neighbor in an extremely insincere way and feels as though he's been asked the world of him; he'll do it, but only if it's in the course of accomplishing something that matters to him.

[Phantasee]

Oil sands don't contribute to GHGs as much as people like to think.

Something like 7% of national emissions -- not a number to be dismissed with impunity.

It's interesting: Alberta has—and Saskatchewan is—massively increased emissions since we began developing our oilsands (and in SK's case, also uranium deposits). Ontario's emissions went down in 2009 but only because of the recession hurting the manufacturing sector in general.

It's a parallel of the problem of developing countries looking at developed countries that have already been through their highly polluting stages of industrialization, and wondering why they don't get a chance to develop the same way. I've heard it often enough from people claiming Kyoto was just a ploy by the imperialist west to keep the developing countries down.

[Phantasee]

Some figures: http://www.ec.gc.ca/ges-ghg/default.asp ... 72E6D4E2-1

What stuck out to me:

The activities of the fossil fuel industries include combustion sources (Fossil Fuel Production and Refining, Mining & Oil and Gas Extraction, and Pipelines) and fugitive sources (Coal Mining, and Oil and Natural Gas).7 The fossil fuel industries registered a net increase of about 55 Mt of GHG emissions from 1990 to 2009 (51% growth). These emissions are related to coal mining and the production, transmission, processing, refining and distribution of all oil and gas products.

By 2009, total production of crude oil and natural gas had increased 57% over 1990 levels. Elevated demand, particularly in the United States, drove these trends, with the export market growing the most rapidly.8 Although increasing demand provides a large portion of the explanation for the emission trend, it does not paint the complete picture.

Since well before 1990, easily removable reserves of conventional crude have been shrinking. Thus, energy consumption per unit of conventional oil produced has been increasing (Neitzert et al. 1999). At the same time, energy- and GHG-intensive production from oil sands activities has become increasingly competitive with conventional oil extraction. These trends contributed to the rapidly rising emission increases in the oil and gas industry over the 1990–2009 period.

Oil sands mining, extraction and upgrading activities were about 1.6 times more GHG-intensive than conventional oil production in 2009. However, the oil sands industry has been reducing its per-unit emissions, and in 2009 intensity was 29% lower than in 1990.9 This reduction in intensity is positive, as larger and larger portions of production are derived from oil sands.

Most transportation emissions in Canada are related to Road Transport, which dominated the GHG growth trend in this area. Emissions from Road Transportation rose by 35 Mt (36%) between 1990 and 2009. Of particular interest in this subsector is a 21 Mt (104%) increase in emissions from light-duty gasoline trucks (LDGTs), which are less efficient from a fuel consumption perspective. This was partially offset by 4.1 and 1.4 Mt emission reductions from gasoline-fuelled cars (light-duty gasoline vehicles, or LDGVs) and alternatively fuelled cars (propane and natural gas vehicles), respectively.

The primary source of this net trend of rising emissions is the increase in the number of passenger-kilometres travelled (more people drove further) (NRCan 2009). However, it was the passenger-kilometres driven by light trucks that increased, while those driven by cars decreased. Contributing to this trend was the fact that the number of light trucks on the road more than doubled between 1990 and 2007, while the number of automobiles remained virtually constant. Since light trucks have higher emissions per kilometre than automobiles, the rising popularity of sport utility vehicles and pickups worsened the emission impact of increasing passenger-kilometres. Contributing further to this is the overall trend towards increasing horsepower for all classes of passenger vehicles, which has negated the rather substantial efficiency improvements made in internal combustion engines (NRCan 2009).

Emissions from heavy-duty diesel vehicles (large freight trucks) rose by 18 Mt between 1990 and 2009, a 91% increase. Spurred on by free trade and the deregulation of the trucking industry, the amount of freight shipped grew rapidly over that period. In addition, the quantity shipped by truck (as opposed to other modes of transport, such as rail) increased as a result of customer requirements for just-in-time delivery and cross-border freight (NRCan 2009).

[wautd]

A damn shame that Canada set the bar as low (rock bottom) as their southern neigbour.

I'm also surprised that some people are still being disappointed with Obama for not doing anything worthwhile in climate. I guess some people still don't realize they're stuck with a president on a republican agenda.

[K. A. Pital]

Since people are rabidly anti-nuclear and want to have their oil and eat it too, this is not surprising. Kyoto was doomed to be a failure and it will fail even harder in the future.

[Uraniun235]

If all of the coal-fired power plants were removed and replaced with carbon-neutral generators, Canada would be about halfway towards being in compliance with Kyoto.

[spaceviking]

Half-way is pretty good.

[Thanas]

Sure is better than doing nothing. Why is Europe the only "country" that is even near the goal line in this?

I get that some nations which are poor have the more urgent problem of putting food on the table, but healthy well-off nations like Canada and the US have no excuse.

[Coop D'etat]

If all of the coal-fired power plants were removed and replaced with carbon-neutral generators, Canada would be about halfway towards being in compliance with Kyoto.

Sadly this really wouldn't be all that difficult for Canada either. Most of the power needs are filled by hydroelectricity and nuclear power covers a large portion of the rest. Alberta and Saskatchewan make up more than half of the carbon from electrical production and are both wealthy enough that switching to nuclear wouldn't be a big issue (not to mention Saskatchewan is where the uranium comes from). Canada also has its own domestic nuclear industry and all the uranium it could possibly need so its not like the money to switch is going outside the country either.

The big villain in this is the provincial government of Alberta. The ruling Progressive Conservatives are completely secure in their control of the province and ideologically opposed to any kind of real regulation off the oil industry (who they're hand in glove with) and like burning coal for bower since there is large coal deposits in the province that no one else is particularly interested in buying. They'd rather spend big money trying to create the technology to make coal carbon neutral through carbon capture than to stop burning it.

[Phantasee]

Nukes aren't the easiest to build, though. I mean even Germany is shutting all their plants down, why is it expected tht Alberta and Saskatchewan will build nuclear plants?

I really wish it wasn't so, but believe me, it's nearly impossible to convince people here nuclear plants are safe.